Current mood:

busy

Mad Madrid - Thurs 21st - Mon 25th June.
Madrid was interesting, but not somewhere I fell in love with in the same was as say, Barcelona or Seville. We did some of the usual touristy stuff like the Royal Palace, a walk along Gran Via (the main street), a stroll through some of the gardens and checked out a museum or two. The royal palace was certainly very impressive, but not really my thing. Lots of somewhat over the top decorated rooms with sparkling chandlers and golden tapestries. I thought the most interesting bit was actually the armoury, with row after row of shiny knights armour and big displays of horse armour with knights atop :) I'm not sure how you convince a horse to Wear that type of armour, let alone let then let a fully kited out knight sit on top, but I guess they managed it somehow. Also had an example of a little 'doggy coat' armour, which was cute :).

Madrid also had lots of lovely fountains and several gardens, many of which were light up a night. We stayed with our friends parents who live outside Madrid, who spoke very little English and were just lovely and fed us and looked after us, including making us proper paella on our last day for lunch and not letting us pay for dinner, despite our best efforts! (there may have bit a wee bit of wresting over the bill). Much eating and drinking and chatting and swimming in the pool in the backyard :)

Sat night we went out in Madrid and danced until the wee hours of the morning. An interesting mix of Spanish and English language songs, to the point where Jen and I were going 'we are in Madrid in Spain, right? 'cause we just about could be in a club in Melbourne right now' . . . We didn't Quite make it to El Rastro, the big market in Madrid on Sunday, and instead spend the day wandering from place to place refueling :).

After that it was off to Marrakesh, but that's defiantly anther story.

Cheers
S.